In response to increases in cohabitation in the United States, researchers have recently focused on differences between cohabiting and marital unions. One consistent finding is a higher rate of ...domestic violence among cohabiting couples as compared with married couples. A prominent explanation for thisfinding is that cohabitation is governed by a different set of institutionalized controls than marriage. This article explores an alternative explanation, namely, that differences in selection out of cohabitation and marriage, including selection of the least-violent cohabiting couples into marriage and the most-violent married couples into divorce, lead to higher observed rates of violence among cohabiting couples in cross-sectional samples. Our results suggest that researchers should be cautious when making comparisons between married and cohabiting couples in which the dependent variable of interest is related to selection into and out of relationship status.
Gun violence is a major public health problem and costs the United States $280 billion annually (1). Although adolescents are disproportionately impacted (e.g. premature death), we know little about ...how close adolescents live to deadly gun violence incidents and whether such proximity impacts their socioemotional development (2, 3). Moreover, gun violence is likely to shape youth developmental outcomes through biological processes-including functional connectivity within regions of the brain that support emotion processing, salience detection, and physiological stress responses-though little work has examined this hypothesis. Lastly, it is unclear if strong neighborhood social ties can buffer youth from the neurobehavioral effects of gun violence. Within a nationwide birth cohort of 3,444 youth (56% Black, 24% Hispanic) born in large US cities, every additional deadly gun violence incident that occurred within 500 meters of home in the prior year was associated with an increase in behavioral problems by 9.6%, even after accounting for area-level crime and socioeconomic resources. Incidents that occurred closer to a child's home exerted larger effects, and stronger neighborhood social ties offset these associations. In a neuroimaging subsample (
= 164) of the larger cohort, living near more incidents of gun violence and reporting weaker neighborhood social ties were associated with weaker amygdala-prefrontal functional connectivity during socioemotional processing, a pattern previously linked to less effective emotion regulation. Results provide spatially sensitive evidence for gun violence effects on adolescent behavior, a potential mechanism through which risk is biologically embedded, and ways in which positive community factors offset ecological risk.
Fragile Families: sample and design Reichman, Nancy E.; Teitler, Julien O.; Garfinkel, Irwin ...
Children and youth services review,
04/2001, Letnik:
23, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This paper provides important background information on the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, and is the first and only paper to provide detailed information on the research methodology and ...sampling strategies employed. The bulk of the paper is devoted to a detailed description of the three-stage sampling process that was used to obtain a nationally representative sample of non-marital births in large US cities. First, it was necessary to sample cities that, collectively, were nationally representative and had maximum variation in policy regimes. Next, it was necessary to sample hospitals so as to be representative of non-marital births in each city. Finally, we sampled births in order to be representative of those at each hospital. The paper concludes with some general information about the study and a simple description of the baseline non-marital sample from the first seven cities.
Adverse childhood experiences are a public health issue with negative sequelae that persist throughout life. Current theories suggest that adverse childhood experiences reflect underlying dimensions ...(eg, violence exposure and social deprivation) with distinct neural mechanisms; however, research findings have been inconsistent, likely owing to variability in how the environment interacts with the brain.
To examine whether dimensional exposure to childhood adversity is associated with person-specific patterns in adolescent resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC), defined as synchronized activity across brain regions when not engaged in a task.
A sparse network approach in a large sample with substantial representation of understudied, underserved African American youth was used to conduct an observational, population-based longitudinal cohort study. A total of 183 adolescents aged 15 to 17 years from Detroit, Michigan; Toledo, Ohio; and Chicago, Illinois, who participated in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study were eligible for inclusion. Environmental data from birth to adolescence were collected via telephone and in-person interviews, and neuroimaging data collected at a university lab. The study was conducted from February 1, 1998, to April 26, 2017, and data analysis was performed from January 3, 2019, to May 22, 2020.
Composite variables representing violence exposure and social deprivation created from primary caregiver reports on children at ages 3, 5, and 9 years.
Resting-state functional connectivity person-specific network metrics (data-driven subgroup membership, density, and node degree) focused on connectivity among a priori regions of interest in 2 resting-state networks (salience network and default mode) assessed with functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Of the 183 eligible adolescents, 175 individuals (98 girls 56%) were included in the analysis; mean (SD) age was 15.88 (0.53) years and 127 participants (73%) were African American. Adolescents with high violence exposure were 3.06 times more likely (95% CI, 1.17-8.92) to be in a subgroup characterized by high heterogeneity (few shared connections) and low network density (sparsity). Childhood violence exposure, but not social deprivation, was associated with reduced rsFC density (β = -0.25; 95% CI, -0.41 to -0.05; P = .005), with fewer salience network connections (β = -0.26; 95% CI, -0.43 to -0.08; P = .005) and salience network-default mode connections (β = -0.20; 95% CI, -0.38 to -0.03; P = .02). Violence exposure was associated with node degree of right anterior insula (β = -0.29; 95% CI, -0.47 to -0.12; P = .001) and left inferior parietal lobule (β = -0.26; 95% CI, -0.44 to -0.09; P = .003).
The findings of this study suggest that childhood violence exposure is associated with adolescent neural network sparsity. A community-detection algorithm, blinded to child adversity, grouped youth exposed to heightened violence based only on patterns of rsFC. The findings may have implications for understanding how dimensions of adverse childhood experiences impact individualized neural development.
•We study White-Asian differences in verbal development during childhood.•Asian Americans start school with higher scores than Whites, but their advantage erodes over time.•Asians in Australia start ...school with lower scores, but they “catch-up” to Whites.•The initial advantage of Asian Americans arises due to their parent’s SES advantage.•Asians in Australia “catch-up” because of their parent’s educational advantage.
Using longitudinal cohort studies from Australia and the United States, we assess the pervasiveness of the Asian academic advantage by documenting White-Asian differences in verbal development from early to middle childhood. In the United States, Asian children begin school with higher verbal scores than Whites, but their advantage erodes over time. The initial verbal advantage of Asian American children is partly due to their parent’s socioeconomic advantage and would have been larger had it not been for their mother’s English deficiency. In Australia, Asian children have lower verbal scores than Whites at age 4, but their scores grow a faster rate and converge towards those of Whites by age 8. The initial verbal disadvantage of Asian Australian children is partly due to their mother’s English deficiency and would have been larger had it not been for their Asian parent’s educational advantage. Asian Australian children’s verbal scores grow at a faster pace, in part, because of their parent’s educational advantage.
This article uses couple-level data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,263) to investigate factors associated with unmarried parents' expectations about marriage and the ...association between their expectations and subsequent union transitions. In most couples, both partners expect to marry, and their shared expectations are the strongest predictor of marriage and separation following their child's birth. Although men's expectations are somewhat more consequential for union transitions, marriage and relationship stability are more likely when at least one parent expects to marry. Factors such as children from previous relationships, distrust, conflict, and shared activities are also associated with union transitions. Findings about how expectations and other factors relate to marriage and separation may inform new marriage promotion initiatives.
In the United States, the Great Recession was marked by severe negative shocks to labor market conditions. In this study, we combine longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing ...Study with U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on local area unemployment rates to examine the relationship between adverse labor market conditions and mothers' experiences of abusive behavior between 2001 and 2010. Unemployment and economic hardship at the household level were positively related to abusive behavior. Further, rapid increases in the unemployment rate increased men's controlling behavior toward romantic partners even after we adjust for unemployment and economic distress at the household level. We interpret these findings as demonstrating that the uncertainty and anticipatory anxiety that go along with sudden macroeconomic downturns have negative effects on relationship quality, above and beyond the effects of job loss and material hardship.
This article has been withdrawn: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy). This article has been withdrawn at the request of the editor and ...publisher. The publisher regrets that an error occurred which led to the premature publication of this paper. This error bears no reflection on the article or its authors. The publisher apologizes to the authors and the readers for this unfortunate error.
Telomeres are repetitive nucleotide sequences located at the ends of chromosomes that protect genetic material. We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to analyze the ...relationship between exposure to spatially concentrated disadvantage and telomere length for white and black mothers. We find that neighborhood disadvantage is associated with shorter telomere length for mothers of both races. This finding highlights a potential mechanism through which the unique spatially concentrated disadvantage faced by African Americans contributes to racial health disparities. We conclude that equalizing the health and socioeconomic status of black and white Americans will be very difficult without reducing levels of residential segregation in the United States.
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